Autocar India - Motorsport Featureshttps://www.autocarindia.comCar and Bike news, reviews and videos.Copyright 2019 Haymarket Media Pty. Ltd.Sun, 15 Sep 2019 15:06:26 +100010X1 Racing League: All you need to know
Launching a motorsport league in India is a risky proposition. The success of cricket’s IPL led to an explosion of leagues across sports in India. But where some succeeded, many failed. Then there’s the fact that for all its visceral appeal, motorsport, especially domestic motorsport, remains a niche sport.

But co-founders and racers Aditya Patel and Armaan Ebrahim are confident they’ve hit upon the winning formula.

Set to flag off in November, they brought the media, influencers, celebrities, the country’s top racers and supercar owners together in a ‘Speed Summit’ at the Buddh International Circuit, earlier this month, to give them a taste of what’s in store when the racing gets underway.

The first X1 event was announced last year, and it offered promise and questions in equal measure.

Who’s going to be racing?

Teams will field four drivers each – one international male driver, one international female driver, one Indian international driver and an Indian domestic driver. X1 says it is in talks with the top drivers globally, across Formula E, NASCAR, Le Mans and Indy 500, as well as former F1 racers. Drivers will be picked via a draft but just who is in the driver pool is yet to be announced, with co-founder Armaan Ebrahim only saying, “We’ve got enough for now and we’re growing.”

What are they going to be racing?

The X1 Racing League is working with Coimbatore-based JA Motorsports – the same company that builds cars for the MRF Challenge – to develop a car for the championship. The league offered a taste of the cars they’d like to race, giving journalists a ride in two JA-designed two-seater cars, but a decision on the exact specifications of the car has yet to be made.

“We’re looking at it, there are various options,” said Ebrahim. “In the next two months, by July, we’ll have an answer to the car.”

Who will they be racing for?

There will be eight teams competing in the league, each representing a city or a state. Potential franchise owners will pay Rs. 5.5 crore for a franchise, inclusive of all costs. They will also be locked-in for a three-year period, by when the league predicts teams will be able to break even.

“The city franchise will not necessarily be a Tier-I city, it can even be a Tier-II city or even a
Tier-III city,” said Aditya Patel.

Four franchises have already been sold, but the league is being tight-lipped on who has bought them, until all eight have been picked up.

“We’re in talks with a lot more people also for the other four but once we have all eight together
we’ll announce them altogether, including the city that they represent,” said Patel. “In some cases it may be a state but a Tier-I city is the most likely.”

Where will they race?

The X1 Racing League will race on a mix of street circuits and permanent tracks. The Buddh International Circuit in Greater Noida and the MMRT on the outskirts of Chennai have been confirmed as two host venues. As for the city tracks, the league had originally hoped to host street races in Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chandigarh and Mumbai. But for the first season, the schedule will feature just one street track. With the league set to take place across four weekends and three tracks, one circuit looks set to host two rounds.

“We don’t want to throw all our eggs in the basket in the first year,” said Patel. “If we do everything in year one, what do we have to offer in year two?”

“We do have a lot of things in mind,” he went on to say. “We do have some cities that we’ve identified and some tracks that are approved but you’ll have to wait for that announcement.”

The League events will run from November to December but will be preceded by its eSports competition, which will be held across eight weeks, beginning in July or August and running until October.

Where’s the money coming from?

Last June, X1 Racing announced that it would invest Rs 100 crore over three years in the league and in promotion of motorsport in the country (excluding investment in R&D, technology, street-
circuit infrastructure and safety equipment), with a five- to seven-year break-even period.

At its Speed Summit in New Delhi, it revealed that its investors include a mix of start-up entrepreneurs, like Kunal Shah, Jitendra Gupta and Raghunandan G, as well as investment companies. Jay Pawar, son of politician Ajit Pawar (nephew to Sharad Pawar), is also an investor.

Formula for success?

Patel and Ebrahim bring credibility to the table, as does the backing of the likes of Ravi Krishnan, the co-founder of Stepathlon and also part of the team that set up sports management company IMG’s operations in India. He will act as the league’s non-executive chairman.

However, there’s no denying it’s a risk. Having said that, greater the risk, the bigger the reward. The X1 league will give drivers a chance to measure themselves against established and upcoming global talent. There’s already talk of creating an X1 Team India – a collection of the country’s top drivers – and grooming them to take part in single-seater and sportscar championships abroad. If the concept takes off, it can only benefit Indian motorsport.

ABHISHEK TAKLE

]]>Staff Writer Staff Writer X1 Racing League: All you need to know2461402461401Mon, 2 Sep 2019 08:00:00 +1000413084Staff Writer Autocar India staff photograherMon, 1 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +1000The X1 Racing League is taking a bold step into the unknown, going where very few have gone before. But with Aditya Patel and Armaan Ebrahim in the driver&#8217;s seat, can it revolutionise Indian motorsport and succeed where others have failed?The X1 Racing League is taking a bold step into the unknown, going where very few have gone before. But with Aditya Patel and Armaan Ebrahim in the driver&#8217;s seat, can it revolutionise Indian motorsport and succeed where others have failed?Mon, 2 Sep 2019 08:00:00 +1000https://www.autocarindia.com/auto-features/x1-racing-league-all-you-need-to-know-413084#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Autocar+India+Features+feed413084Celebrating 10 years of Volkswagen Motorsport
I am super-thrilled today, not only am I driving on a racetrack but I’ve got over half-a-dozen race cars lined up. Volkswagen Motorsport is celebrating its 10th anniversary in India this year, and has invited us to experience every single race car it has developed since its inception in India. The best bit is I’ll get to drive these cars back to back in the order of their progression, which will give me a better sense of how these cars have actually evolved over the past 10 years. Let’s start where it all began.

Race Polo TDI (2010-2011)

Believe it or not, but it all started with a ‘diesel’ Polo powered by a 1.6-litre engine. The whole idea behind developing a diesel race car was to showcase that diesel models didn’t have to be noisy and slow. What really made this car particularly interesting was the fact that it was equipped with a manual gearbox and had no driver aides like traction control or ABS, and so it demanded precise driver inputs.

The car was quite edgy and challenging to drive. If I missed a braking point and then braked harder, the rear would just lock up and go into a slide! Irrespective of its shortcomings, this was one of the most intense cars to drive of the lot. It also served as a crucial learning tool for rookie drivers as well as experienced racers, and with telemetry data recorded, drivers were able to review their laps.

Race Polo TSI (2012-2014)

Things moved a notch higher with a change of heart to the 1.4-litre TSI engine. It put out 177hp and the combination of a supercharger and a turbocharger meant it had a decent punch to attack a racetrack. Another big change was a race-spec 6-speed DSG gearbox that was lightning-quick to run through the gears.

From the word go, the Polo TSI cup car felt a lot quicker and considerably more forgiving than the previous car. And, of course, it did not demand taking hands off the wheel to shift gears – it was as simple as slotting the gear lever in ‘S’ and going all out. The paddleshifters made it a lot easier to run through the gears as well. Undoubtedly, with a more powerful engine and driver aids, the Polo Cup TSI made a better proposition, especially for novice drivers.

Race Vento (2013-2016)

In 2013, Volkswagen motorsport shifted focus and moved onto developing the Vento. This car was the first one for which the Indian team contributed a lot of engineering input (the previous ones were completely developed overseas). The Race Vento employed the same drivetrain as the Polo TSI, but the biggest change was that the bolt-in roll cage was replaced with one that was welded-in, instead. This helped stiffen the chassis substantially, making the car handle much better.

In the out-lap itself, I could tell how different the Vento felt in comparison to the Polo. It felt more stiff and planted through the corners, allowing me to carry higher speeds. So far, this car felt the most sorted of the lot. It struck a good balance for rookie drivers to learn and experienced drivers to have fun.

Race Ameo (2017)

The Race Ameo is probably dearest to the engineers at VW Motorsport, as this one was completely designed and developed by the team here in India and headed by Sirish Vissa.

With the Race Ameo, they had now moved back to a shorter wheelbase, compared to the Race Vento, but the engineers went all out to make it a more planted car than the rest. Powered by a 1.8-litre turbo-petrol engine making 205hp, it also had a race-spec DSG gearbox and probably one of the coolest-looking (and functional) rear aero wings.

It was almost surprising how quickly I got acquainted with this car. By far the most forgiving one
I had driven from the lot, the chassis felt tight and kept the Ameo pliant through some of the tricky corners of the Madras MotorSport Race Track (MMRT). It felt easy and forgiving, which made finding faster racing lines fairly easy. There is some understeer but VW says that’s built-in to help new drivers. In any case, the Race Ameo is the most finely tuned race car from the VW stable.

For the racer in you

Volkswagen Motorsport India had launched a customer support initiative in 2013 with the Polo Group N and then the Polo R2, to compete in the FMSCI Indian Rally Championship. This initiative allowed rally drivers to purchase a rally-ready car prepared by the factory and have supervised service support of the VW Motorsport engineers.

Apart from the Polo, this programme also offers the Vento race car, if you plan to participate in the Indian Touring Championships or to even have a blast at a racetrack; it is a 210hp turbo-petrol (TC4-A) offering that complies with ITC regulations. It’s a more hardcore car in comparison to the other VW Motorsport models; it’s got a manual sequential gearbox, sharper handling and is more reactive overall, which is suitable for a professional race driver. If you want to participate in the Indian National Rally Championship, Volkswagen has few other models – INRC 1 (1.2 TSI and 1.6 MPI), INRC 2 (1.6 MPI), and INRC 3 (1.6 MPI).

Last, but definitely not the least, is the wild child in the VW Motorsport stable, called the ‘winter project’. The Polo RX is unlike any other of their offerings – this one’s mid-engined and rear-wheel driven!

The RX looks identical to the Polo Cup, but air vents in the rear doors make it easily recognisable.

Powered by a 1.8-litre turbocharged petrol engine – the same unit as on the Ameo Cup car – the rear-mounted powerplant sends 205hp to the rear wheels via the lightning-quick race-spec sequential gearbox that’s operated by paddleshifters. If you think 205hp isn’t enough for you, VW Motorsport can build one for you with 305hp! With the weight balance of 45/55, it’s very close to a 50:50 weight distribution ratio. It surely will make for one hell of a drift monster, albeit a snappy one, thanks to its short wheelbase. Currently, the RX does not meet any racing standard but VW says they will build one to, both, track- and rally-spec.

Volkswagen Motorsport has indeed come a long way. From racing cars developed in Germany to developing race cars completely in India; and now mid-mounted engines and rear-wheel drive. It has proved its mettle – and most importantly, provided a platform to budding racers and enthusiasts. The next 10 years are looking bright.

Interview with Sirish Vissa, Head, Volkswagen Motorsport India

Why did Volkswagen choose to pursue motorsport in India?
Motorsport is a fantastic way for us to showcase all of the qualities and capabilities of Volkswagen. So we are talking about safety first, robustness and the fun-to-drive aspect of it. You know it’s quite boring when you are trying to advertise safety, but when you demonstrate safety in terms of what happens in an unpredictable atmosphere, like a racetrackwhere you have got drivers walking away from massive accidents, it’s a testament to how well the cars are built. Plus, for us, with the way we run our one-make championship, it’s about finding and developing talent and giving them a platform where they can develop their careers.

The Polo RX is certainly very interesting, can you tell us more about it and specifically: Why rear-wheel-drive?
When we look at all the cars that we’ve got, they’re all front-wheel-drive models. The question was, how do we make something that is even more extreme, even more radical and even more challenging to drive? We looked at the Polo – the wheelbase of the Polo and the characteristics of the Polo. It is a good starting point, but we wanted to do something different. We need to move the driven wheels from the front to the rear because then we can keep the sharpness of the steering; we can reduce the understeer on power because now the rear wheels will be doing the power delivery and it will be able to get the car out of a corner better. We set ourselves a target that we wanted to go from normal 65 percent front-weight bias and 35 percent rear-weight bias (which most of the other cup cars are) to having something that is closer to 50:50. With that car, in the spec that it’s in, it’s 45 front and 55 rear. So we’re not too far away.

]]>Rahul Kakar Rahul Kakar Celebrating 10 years of Volkswagen Motorsport 2461402461401Sat, 18 May 2019 09:00:00 +1000412719Rahul Kakar Autocar India staff photograherMon, 1 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +1000Volkswagen Motorsport celebrates its 10th anniversary in India, we sample the race cars that were, and the ones soon to come.Volkswagen Motorsport celebrates its 10th anniversary in India, we sample the race cars that were, and the ones soon to come.Sat, 18 May 2019 09:00:00 +1000https://www.autocarindia.com/auto-features/celebrating-10-years-of-volkswagen-motorsport-412719#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Autocar+India+Features+feed412719RIP George Francis
“I wanted to be a priest.” Scrutinise the speaker of these words and you wouldn’t think that such would have been his career of choice. His ponytail and a few distinguishing scars give George Francis the air of an intrepid traveller, not the look one would expect of someone who wanted to join the seminary.

George is a permanent fixture at motorsport events in the country. Whether it is circuit racing at the Kari Motor Speedway and Madras Motor Sports Track or rounds of the Indian National Rally Championship, you’re sure to see him clutching his camera and walking about. And on the rare occasion when he isn’t present, you’ll see a couple of cameramen wearing blue T-shirts with ‘Scorp’ emblazoned on them. They’re photographers from Scorp News, the private news agency that George set up, which specialises in motorsport photography.

What Keith Sutton is to Formula 1, George Francis is to Indian motorsport, and it goes without saying that he wouldn’t have got there had he not picked the camera instead of the cassock.

George discovered his love for writing and photography when he was in college studying literature. And he liked speed too. His proximity to Sholavaram meant the stage was set for one of the longest-running lliances in Indian motorsport – 25 years and counting.

“Sholavaram 1984 was the first race I attended,” George says. He liked what he saw too – cars and bikes rip-roaring down the T-shaped track. He was smitten. The shutter clicked several times, chemicals swished over film in the dark room, developed photos were mailed (as in posted) to magazines, and a paycheck was received. He was smitten some more.

From then on, George made sure he was present at all the races that took place. He began covering rallies as well. And this was in a day and age when there were no arrangements made for the media. “I’ve travelled with Rs 200 in my pocket, including my bus fare from Chennai to Bangalore to cover the South India Rally. And with no transport available to get to the special stages, I hitchhiked.” He’d travel any which way to get to a rally, a sure-fire recipe for adventures and misadventures alike.

George recalls the Indian leg of the 1993 London-Sydney Rally when he travelled from Chennai to Delhi in an unreserved train compartment to cover the flag-off. “I’d decided, transport or no transport, I was going to cover the rally somehow,” he says. After the flag-off, he hopped on a state transport bus to take him to the next leg in Shimla and onwards to Chandigarh. And just how did he cover the various stages in Chandigarh? “I was on a Vespa scooter that I borrowed from my brother-in-law.”

Of course, that is not all. The London-Sydney Rally is a journey of epic proportions and it is only fitting that George had some epic escapades. “I returned to Delhi for the restart of the rally, then caught a bus to Rajasthan where the following leg was being held. With some difficulty we managed to find our way from Ajmer to the village where the special stages were being held. We waited in the sun for four hours, and finally the news came through that the stage had been cancelled due to an accident. By then I’d had enough. I travelled to Udaipur on the roof of a bus, since all the seats were reserved. Another bus journey to Bombay followed, and with my luck we got stuck in the ghats which meant the 12-hour journey was further delayed. But that was it for me in the London-Sydney rally. Ten years later when there was another edition of it passing through India, things were very different. We were transported from place to place in a special van arranged for the media.”

“Motorsport is dangerous,” say signboards at most racetracks. No one knows this better than George. To begin with, he is infamous for ignoring pleas that photographers stay behind the Armco barriers. “I trust the ‘animals’ on track, more than I trust the snakes and other creatures that lurk in the foliage behind the barriers.” And he’s had more than a couple of close shaves too. In the 1999 Mill and Monsoon Rally in Coimbatore, George had Jagat Nanjappa’s car neatly framed in his Canon’s viewfinder. As the car went around the corner though, something looked odd. George lowered the camera only to find that the car looked set to turn turtle, and take him out with it! Thankfully, Jagat managed to gain control of the car and George was safe, with some great photographs to boot.

Spookier perhaps was when in 1994 he was trying to get a head-on shot of rallyist Hari Singh. The car was framed nicely but just when he was about to press the trigger, it vanished from sight altogether. A perplexed George lowered the camera, and looked heavenwards only to see the Gypsy sail clear over his head.

“We’ve survived despite motorsport,” George chuckles. “But the sport certainly has grown over the years. From events that people would take part in for just the sheer joy of it, to the current scenario where it’s become a business. It’s grown and we’ve grown with it.”

Indian motorsport’s glorious past can be seen in the photographs that George has taken - a quarter-century of Indian motorsport. Ask him about the future of motorsport in the country and he only smiles. Fair enough. They say pictures speak a thousand words, and George is happy to let his photographs do the talking.

WORDS: Vaishali Dinakaran

PICTURES: Scorp news

George Francis passed away on April 11, 2019. This feature was originally published in Autocar India's September 2009 issue.

There are a few iconic motorsport videos that make a deeply powerful impact when you first watch them. Some of the toppers in my list include riding on-board with Ayrton Senna at Monaco, Ari Vatanen’s ‘Climb Dance’ up Pike’s Peak, Guy Martin vs Michael Dunlop at the Isle of Man TT and more recently, the Porsche 919 Hybrid Evo decimating the Nürburgring lap record. But the most astonishing of the lot was the grainy footage from the 1988 Dakar rally featuring Jan de Rooy passing Ari Vatanen in the Sahara desert at over 200kph.

Vatanen, a rally legend, was in the Peugeot 405 Turbo – the car that eventually won that year’s rally – while de Rooy was in a truck. Yes, a truck. But this was one of the most extreme race trucks ever built, a Frankensteinian creation of de Rooy’s own genius (or madness) called the DAF Turbo Twin X1. The X1 used two 11.6-litre twin-turbo diesel engines, one powering each axle and making a total of over 1,200hp, enough for a top speed of well over 200kph. On sand. Yeah, Dakar is something else!

THE INITIATION

This year, I got to soak in some of the insanity as we followed the Sherco TVS team for three days of the 10-day, 5,000km rally in Peru. This is not a race report, primarily because I wasn’t there to witness the entire rally, but also because you’ll find everything related to the results online. Instead, I want to share with you the experience and emotions of being at one of the greatest sporting spectacles on the planet.

Mass starts on select stages lead to intensely close racing.

Everything about the Dakar is staggeringly difficult, starting with just getting there. It took 40-odd hours of travel before we even stepped foot on a competitive stage, by which time the rally had already completed three days. Standing there on the morning of Stage 4, excitedly waiting for the first vehicle of the day to pass, we finally saw a tiny dust stream churning up far in the Peruvian desert horizon. About 10 minutes later, factory Yamaha rider Xavier de Soultrait went past in a quick, but measured manner. We later discovered this is quite normal for the rider who ‘opens the stage’ because there are no tracks in the ground to follow. Usually, the rider who opens the stage rarely ends up winning it, but watching that lone Yamaha emerge from the emptiness and disappear just as quickly was such a thrill. However, I had no clue what was in store next.

The participants have to mark their roadbooks the evening before every stage.

The second-place rider that day, Pablo Quintanilla, followed about half-a-minute later and his approach was one of the wildest things I’ve ever seen. Soultrait obediently followed what his road book told him and took a neat 90-degree turn at the T-junction on the dirt track the riders were sticking to. Quintanilla, meanwhile, was playing by his own rules. He glanced at the complicated navigation tower on his Husqvarna, figured the direction he needed to go in and veered away from the dirt track, jumping up onto a large football-field-sized platform of dirt and boulders that we were standing on. Essentially turning the 90-degree route into a 45-degree shortcut, Quintanilla was doing everything he could to make up time, and that was awesome; except that a couple of fellow journalists and I were standing right where he was headed.

The Kamaz rally trucks are massive, fearsome things.

An adult mechanic for comparison against the huge trucks!

THE FACE OF FEAR

I now intimately know how those poor deer feel when they meet a set of headlights. Paralysed, my eyes locked onto the Husqvarna flying at me at terrifying speed, its giant suspension fork chomping through boulders like they were Skittles. Just as I was about to drop everything and sprint away in blind hope, the Husky abruptly changed direction, jumped clean off the mud field and landed sideways on the gravel road about three feet below. Suspension deeply compressed, Quintanilla was hard on the gas, the 450cc single hammering against the limiter as the bike pulled a long drift before straightening out. Powering away, he glanced back with what I could swear was a cheeky grin inside that black and yellow helmet. Or maybe he was just shaking his head at the idiots in his way.

Through the rest of the day, we watched in awe the top-20 elite riders flying past with unbelievable speed, accuracy and confidence. Great pride swept across as we saw each of the four Sherco TVS bikes and three Hero MotoCorp bikes rip by, especially so as we cheered on our own Indian riders, Aravind KP and CS Santosh. The route for Stage 4 that we were witnessing was shared by all classes of vehicles, so we had the treat of watching the quads, side-by-sides and cars fly by. Some of the top cars like the Peugeots look wild, but their diesel engines sound was nowhere close to being as good as the glorious V8s in the Toyota and Ford pick-ups that can be heard from miles away.

MONSTER TRUCKS

As awesome as the bikes are to watch, nothing can prepare you for the brutality of the trucks. Today’s race trucks have been restricted, after de Rooy’s teammate had a massive crash in 1988, killing one of the occupants and causing the team to pull out when de Rooy was leading the overall standings. But even now these things are crazy quick and produce upwards of 1,000hp – the Dakar trucks are my new visual definition for the word ‘juggernaut’ and the way they accelerate, brake and simply clamber over pretty much anything in their way beggars belief. The faster trucks often run right up there with the top 10 cars on a stage, and when you see them steamroll the desert into submission, you’ll understand why.

Seemingly unstoppable, the rally trucks are incredible to watch, and the faster ones are nearly as quick as the cars.

The trucks have also built a reputation for themselves, as Sherco TVS’ star Indian rider Aravind KP later told us. Many of the competitors in the car category used to race on two wheels so they exercise caution and respect while overtaking any of the bikes in their way. But KP jokes that when the warning system on his bike chimes to alert that a faster vehicle is approaching from the rear, he moves right out of the way if it’s a giant Kamaz – no messing around here!

Day one was a special experience, but the next day was on another level. This time, we were positioned at the base of some gigantic sand dunes and were told that we’d get to see the cars, side-by-sides and trucks drive past. The bikes and quads, however, would have to ride up the dunes, traverse a long loop on the other end and then ride back down the same dunes towards us, after which they could carry on to the end of the stage. Having arrived there about half an hour before the first bikes appeared, I had plenty of time to look up in confident disbelief. The dunes ahead looked about 10 to 15 stories tall, possibly higher still, and there was no way in hell, I told myself, that any vehicle could climb them.

Sure enough, the lead riders eventually arrived, this time in a pack, thanks to the group start of 10 bikes at a time for the start of Stage 5, instead of the individual bike flag off that happens on most days. And then the craziest thing happened – they veered right and aimed straight for the top of the dunes! About 15 seconds of screaming exhaust note later, the bikes began to crest the top and disappear onto the other side. For the next four hours, I watched in complete incredulousness as, one by one, the bikes dropped over the edge and then re-emerged from an even taller neighbouring dune about 10 minutes later.

Four race trucks are better than one.

The top riders made it look almost easy, but as the hours went by, we got another glimpse of the Dakar – its brutal, gut-wrenching side. The point on the stage we were standing at was just 20km short of the end of the competitive special stage. By this point, the bikers had already covered about 200km in transport stages and 320km of special stage racing in extreme terrain. The later riders were absolutely knackered and many couldn’t understand that their navigation was telling them to run a loop around the dunes. We took it upon ourselves to wave these riders in the right direction for the next couple of hours, and in some cases, just to encourage them onto the finish. More than a few riders pulled over next to us, exhausted, dehydrated and almost delirious. One was in tears, on the verge of giving up and only agreed to go on after much encouragement and convincing from our end. We helped in any way we could, offering food and fluids to these struggling warriors.

Spot the clutch lever - it’s all about carrying spares for easily broken parts as cleverly as possible.

THE GREATEST MEMORY

Another rider pulled up without his goggles that he must have lost somewhere in the desert. He couldn’t see a thing in all the dust and his face wore a heartbreaking expression that was a mix of extreme fatigue and near helplessness. Almost instinctively, I pulled the sunglasses off my face, gave them to him and cheered him on to the stage finish. Helping in any way you can feels like a privilege at the Dakar. The next day, I met Ben Young – I discovered his name later– in the bivouac and was thrilled to see he’d made it through the stage (and eventually the entire rally too, finishing in 51st position). Ben even returned my sunglasses to me and I can now claim to own something that has been through a Dakar marathon stage. How cool is that!

Ben Young lost his goggles and couldn’t see a thing so I gave him my sunglasses. We even met the next day!

The end of Stage 5 marked the halfway point of the Dakar and the four Sherco TVS riders had done well so far. Dakar rookie Lorenzo Santolino was doing a fantastic job and finished Stage 5 in fourth place and was 11th in the general standings. Adrien Metge was 16th overall and his brother Michael 26th, after having struggled with fuel issues that dropped him back. Best of all, Aravind KP brought the bike back safely too, despite some hard falls, and was holding 53rd position. With the first-half complete, all the teams earned a hugely deserved day of rest.

THOU SHALT REST

Our final day in Peru was spent exploring the bivouac on the mid-rally rest day. The bivouac is a massive moving campsite where teams service vehicles overnight between the stages. This was like wandering through candy land – you barely know what to look at as the teams repair and prepare these exotic, purpose-built machines for the next day of racing. Some teams are tiny, two- or three-man outfits, while others like Kamaz come with a small army of four race, an equal number of support trucks and what looks like over 50 crew members.

The bivouac bristles with activity into the late hours of the night.

The participants are all under various states of repair too, especially the riders, and by the midway point, almost everyone is nursing some injury or the other. These are the kind of injuries that’ll have you or me call for weeks of sick leave and cry for mommy, but the competitors just shrug it off and carry on with a smile and the usual, ‘This is Dakar, this is how it goes’.

Physiotherapists are vital at the Dakar.

Many participants sleep right next to their machines.

WOUNDED SOLDIERS

Beyond the insane machinery on display, the bivouac is also a place where you’ll hear amazing stories of human resilience that is at the very core of what makes the Dakar so great. Stories of riders who have had a bad crash, hurt a leg and then won’t take that boot off for days until the end of the rally. That’s because they know something in there is broken and worry that if the foot swells up too much the boot won’t go back on. Or stories of how sometimes the drivers’ rib-cages can mildly collapse under the stress of the tight racing harness and the unending hammering over hard terrain. There are physiotherapists on hand to help literally pull the bottom section of ribs back out, or in most cases, provide a relieving massage at the end of a day.

Pain is intrinsic to the Dakar.

Scarily swollen wrists and pronounced limps are a common sight here. Hell, Toby Price, the rally’s eventual winner, pushed through the whole event after undergoing surgery to repair a fractured scaphoid bone sustained in a training crash just weeks before the Dakar began. Last year’s winner, Matthias Walkner, injured his leg badly in Stage 5, but persevered to finish in second overall, after which he was diagnosed with a fractured ankle. Pablo Quintanilla was in it to win it on the last day, starting the final stage less than 2 minutes behind Toby Price in the overall standings, but he had a heavy, heavy crash in the dunes – a scary video of which you’ll find online. He fractured his ankle in the crash but, incredibly, got back on the bike and finished the rally in fourth place overall. I’m can’t think of where else you’ll see similar levels of sheer heroism.

Aussie madman Toby Price won the rally with a freshly operated fractured wrist.

These are just a handful of the more publicised instances. Every participant here is a hero and has soldiered through monumental difficulties to get to the finish. I deeply admire them all, but the bikers and quad riders are on another level. These guys are out there on their own, they navigate by themselves and the level of competition in the two-wheel category is incredibly fierce and much closer than any other class.

A massive dent in Aravind KP’s wheel rim.

The Dakar allows riders to use tyre mousse – a high-density foam-like replacement for tyre tubes that ends the hassles of punctures.

INDIAN DREAMS

Team Sherco TVS came to the rally with an improved motorcycle that had a bigger fuel capacity of 32 litres and an increased top speed of 170kph. This was Aravind KP’s third stab at the Dakar and he was determined to finish. KP battled through multiple crashes and the drama of his bike stalling in the middle of Stage 9 with alternator issues. Fortunately, he managed to fix it and ultimately finished the rally in 37th place, which makes him only the second Indian to ever do so.

Three Sherco TVS riders completed the Dakar, including Aravind KP, the only Indian to do so this year.

Sherco TVS’ leading rider this year, Lorenzo Santolino, unfortunately wasn’t as lucky, as a crash in Stage 6 ended his race and left him with a cracked vertebra and six broken ribs. Teammates Adrien Metge finished in 22nd and Michael Metge in 25th. Adrien rode through most of the rally with what was later diagnosed as a fractured scaphoid and Michael made up for his terrible luck with fuel issues by putting in a stellar performance to win Stage 9.

As for Hero Motorsport, CS Santosh was doing well, but a crash on Stage 5 ended his rally. Oriol Mena put in another superb performance to finish in 9th, while teammate Joaquim Rodrigues brought it home in 17th place.

A hard crash unfortunately ended CS Santosh’s rally at Stage 5. But he’s sure to be back next year!

LIFE LESSONS

Experiencing Dakar has taught me new respect for just how far man can push through adversity. Beyond the racing, this is one of the most intense tests of human spirit. Those who conquer the Dakar find euphoria, but the rally hands out gut-wrenching heartbreak far more easily, as the 63 non-finishers (about 43 percent of the starting line-up) in the motorcycle category will tell you. This holds painfully true for factory Honda rider Ricky Brabec whose engine seized when he was leading the overall standings, just two days from the chequered flag.

As for me, I’ve returned with a new perspective of what difficulty means and the lesson that when tough times strike, to just smile and tell myself, ‘This too shall pass’.

For another year in a row, the mighty Kamaz was unbeatable, although the Ivecos tried hard.

The wraps have come off the cars and it’s now time to hit the track. Will Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton race to a record sixth straight title double or will Ferrari get their act together and end five years of unbroken dominance by the German marque? And what of Red Bull? Will the Honda gamble pay off and will we see the emergence of Max Verstappen as a championship contender? Could the new aerodynamic rules aimed at boosting overtaking deliver a shake-up of the pecking order? There are plenty of questions. The answers will have to wait until the lights go out in Melbourne. For now, we take a look at each of the teams and how they might fare as they gear up for the 2019 Formula One season.

MERCEDES

Can anybody stop the Mercedes juggernaut? Five years into Formula One’s turbo-hybrid era and the German marque is yet to be beaten. With Lewis Hamilton in the form of his life as the newly minted five-time world champion and the Silver Arrows having successfully overcome the might of Ferrari two years running, it will be hard to bet against them clinching a record sixth straight double title.

Mercedes

Full team name

Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport

Team Principal

Toto Wolff

Chassis

F1 W10 EQ Power+

Drivers

Lewis Hamilton, Valtteri Bottas

Engine

Mercedes

2018 position

1st (655 pts)

FERRARI

Ferrari may be Formula One’s most successful team but they haven’t won a title for 10 years. Having dropped the ball in 2017-2018, can they finally seal the deal at their third attempt? Sebastian Vettel has a new teammate – the highly-rated Charles Leclerc. The German will have to up his game this year to match rival Lewis Hamilton as well as fend off his young teammate, who will be eager to test himself against (and maybe beat) a four-time world champion.

Ferrari

Full team name

Scuderia Ferrari Mission Winnow

Team Principal

Mattia Binotto

Chassis

SF90

Drivers

Sebastian Vettel,Charles Leclerc

Engine

Ferrari

2018 position

2nd (571 pts)

RED BULL

Having ditched Renault for Honda power, Red Bull will be setting their sights on joining Mercedes and Ferrari in a three-way fight for the title. It’s a gamble for sure, given Honda’s tribulations with McLaren. If it pays off, then in Max Verstappen, the team has a driver ready and champing at the bit to challenge for the title. With Daniel Ricciardo having left for Renault, Verstappen will have a new teammate this year – Toro Rosso graduate Pierre Gasly.

Red Bull

Full team name

Aston Martin Red Bull Racing

Team Principal

Christian Horner

Chassis

RB15

Drivers

Max Verstappen, Pierre Gasly

Engine

Honda

2018 position

3rd (419 pts)

RENAULT

Renault have made steady progress since returning to F1 as a works team in 2016. The team ended last season 4th overall, albeit after Force India was bumped to the bottom, having been listed as a new entry. The signing of Daniel Ricciardo, alongside Nico Hülkenberg, represents a major coup for the Enstone-based squad. While it may be ‘too much, too soon’ to challenge the top three just yet, the team will have to continue to show progress.

Renault

Full team name

Renault F1 Team

Team Principal

Cyril Abiteboul

Chassis

R.S. 19

Drivers

Daniel Ricciardo, Nico Hülkenberg

Engine

Renault

2018 position

4th (122 pts)

HAAS

The only team other than Mercedes to go into the season with an unchanged driver line-up, Haas will be fielding a striking black-and-gold car in the colours of new title sponsor Rich Energy. They will have their sights on ending the season best of the rest. The gulf to the top teams remains too wide to bridge but, having finished 5th in the standings last year, the team can realistically set their sights on a top-four placing.

Haas

Full team name

Rich Energy Haas F1 Team

Team Principal

Guenther Steiner

Chassis

VF-19

Drivers

Romain Grosjean, Kevin Magnussen

Engine

Ferrari

2018 position

5th (93 pts)

MCLAREN

On paper, the last season was better for McLaren than 2017. But in reality, powered by the same Renault engine that won four races in the back of the Red Bull, it was a humbling year for the former champions. Having boldly predicted podium finishes in 2018, the Woking-based squad head into 2019 with no publicly laid out expectations and a brand new driver line-up in former Red Bull protégé Carlos Sainz and promising rookie Lando Norris.

McLaren

Full team name

McLaren Formula 1 Team

Team Principal

Zak Brown

Chassis

MCL34

Drivers

Carlos Sainz, Lando Norris

Engine

Renault

2018 position

6th (62 pts)

RACING POINT

A brand new name, a brand new owner and a brand new identity – 2019 marks the start of a new chapter for the team formerly known as Force India. The team, now owned by billionaire Lawrence Stroll, no longer needs to operate on among the smallest budgets in the paddock. Still, challenging the top three may be an ambitious target for now. Mexican Sergio Pérez will be staying on for another season. He will be joined by Lance Stroll, son of Lawrence Stroll.

Racing Point

Full team name

SportPesa Racing Point F1 Team

Team Principal

Otmar Szafnauer

Chassis

RP19

Drivers

Sergio Pérez, Lance Stroll

Engine

Mercedes

2018 position

7th (52 pts)

ALFA ROMEO

Sauber, under new ownership, climbed the ladder to 8th in the standings last year. Now racing under the Alfa Romeo banner, and with Kimi Räikkönen returning to the team with which he made his Formula One debut, there’s a real sense of optimism surrounding the squad heading into 2019. The Finn will bring crucial testing and development experience paired alongside the Ferrari-backed youngster, Antonio Giovinazzi.

Alfa Romeo

Full team name

Alfa Romeo Racing

Team Principal

Frédéric Vasseur

Chassis

C38

Drivers

Kimi Räikkönen, Antonio Giovinazzi

Engine

Ferrari

2018 position

8th (48 pts)

TORO ROSSO

Red Bull’s junior team will field an all-new driver line-up in the 2019 Formula One. Alexander Albon will be making his F1 debut while Daniil Kvyat returns for yet another stint with the Faenza-based team. Toro Rosso, running Honda engines last year, occasionally managed some strong results last season, like Pierre Gasly’s 4th-place finish in Bahrain. The team will be hoping to score more such memorable results in 2019.

Toro Rosso

Full team name

Red Bull Toro Rosso Honda

Team Principal

Franz Tost

Chassis

STR14

Drivers

Daniil Kvyat, Alexander Albon

Engine

Honda

2018 position

9th (33 pts)

WILLIAMS

The former champions endured their worst season ever in 2018, finishing last in the standings with just seven points. It can only get better than this, and Williams will be hoping it does. The experience of Robert Kubica, making a miraculous return to racing eight years after a near-fatal rally accident, should be a benefit in developing the car and act as the perfect counterpoint to the highly-rated Mercedes-backed rookie George Russell’s enthusiasm.

Williams

Full team name

ROKiT Williams Racing

Team Principal

Claire Williams

Chassis

FW42

Drivers

Robert Kubica, George Russell

Engine

Mercedes

2018 position

10th (7 pts)

]]>Staff Writer Staff Writer F1 2019 season preview2461402461401Sat, 2 Mar 2019 06:00:00 +1000411733Staff Writer Autocar India staff photograherMon, 1 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +1000With the cars having broken cover ahead of the new season, we take a look at each of the teams lining up on the grid for Formula One 2019.With the cars having broken cover ahead of the new season, we take a look at each of the teams lining up on the grid for Formula One 2019.Sat, 2 Mar 2019 06:00:00 +1000https://www.autocarindia.com/motor-sports-news/f1-2019-season-preview-411733#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Autocar+India+Features+feed411733JA Motorsport Inde 2.0 drive experience

It’s a sombre setting, with the sun having risen behind a thick layer of grey skies. The main straight at the MMRT that disappears into C1 is empty and there’s a silence that’s quite unusual for our typically action-packed track days. This only lasts an elaborate moment, though, and is shattered almost vengefully by what sounds like an explosion in the pit lane. In an instant, an air of busyness takes over, followed by the chirrup of cold rubber on tarmac. It’s Narain, and he seems to be in a hurry.

Inde’s astounding balance helps keep it sniffing the track edges all the time.

The blurry black streak that quickly slithers onto the racetrack is the Inde 2.0, a track-day car that’s made right here, in India. Those of you with a good memory will remember our outing with the earlier Inde 2.0 from 2013, when it left us hugely impressed and craving for more track time with it. But five years is a long time in the business of building performance cars; J Anand, a man with nearly a decade of illustrious racing experience and founder of JA Motorsport, knows this only too well. As a result, the Inde 2.0 you see here is almost entirely different from the one we got our hands on half a decade ago. And it’s gotten even faster. That should explain why the seat next to Narain’s is empty.

Like in its first iteration, the Inde 2.0 continues to be a two-seater, because if you are affluent enough to afford a dedicated track-day machine, you are entitled to a fair bit showing off. It’s also the most fun way to alienate friends, I suspect, going by how hard Narain is slamming the Inde into corners, riding the kerbs precisely and swiftly every single time.

Cabin wide enough for two very brave occupants.

The ‘2.0’ suffix, in case you didn’t catch our 2013 drive experience, denotes the engine displacement, but this time around, the 2.0-litre, four-cylinder motor is sourced from Ford rather than from Renault. The naturally aspirated Duratec motor built by JA Motorsport features a dry-sump lubrication and produces around 230hp, which is an impressive 20hp higher than the Renault-engined Inde. Featuring a steel crankshaft, forged high-compression pistons and high-lift cams, this four-cylinder motor contributes hugely to the Inde’s stellar performance. The gearbox is a six-speed sequential unit with paddleshifters and, interestingly, the gearbox casing is made in India. The production-spec Inde will, in fact, come with a larger, 2.5-litre Duratec motor with three power output options, depending on how fast you want to go. The base version produces a relatively tame 170hp, with the mid- and top-spec variants pushing 230hp and a frightening 305hp, respectively. This, in a car that weighs around 600kg, is a lot of power, just in case you were considering taking these figures lightly.

Tiny 13-inch wheels provide precise handling.

Narain is especially impressed with the exhaust note, though (“you’ll need earplugs or you’ll go deaf,” he tells me later), and that explains why he seemed to have the accelerator pedal slammed all the way in, despite the tricky wet patches scattered around the track.

“You do have to fight the steering under aggressive cornering,” adds Narain “but a lot of it is also down to how you like to have your car set up”. Indeed, any track-day car worth its salt banks heavily on setup, and it’s in fine-tuning the smallest details that crucial milliseconds of one’s lap times can be shed. For that, however, having a good base is paramount and the Inde confidently has it all in place. Just as in the earlier car, the Inde uses a meticulously engineered but also cost-effective tubular steel spaceframe; carbon-fibre architecture isn’t quite the need of the hour in this performance bracket. The spaceframe has grown heavier, courtesy of the enhanced strengthening at the front bulkhead in the interest of FIA crash compliance, but the Inde has enough ammunition to overshadow this deficit.

Ducts address heat dissipation.

While the chassis’ track isn’t wider than before, Anand has increased the cockpit width to make it ergonomically better to suit its enhanced aggression. The wheelbase, at 2,530mm, is the same as before and it continues to run 13-inch wheels, with 200/240-section front and rear tyres from MRF. This setup is further assisted by the tweaked suspension geometry; some of you will remember the original car’s pushrod suspension with A-arms – this configuration remains unchanged and lends the car incredible amounts of grip, even if at the expense of ride quality. The firmness of the car is astounding and even the most unforgiving of production supercars are beyond comparison, but then this is a race car you’re never going to go on a shopping expedition with, so it’s fair.

Aerodynamics naturally play a huge role in the Inde’s performance, which should explain its ultra-low-slung, streamlined appearance. The older car featured a rear wing that came straight off a Dallara F3 car but, thanks to the performance going up by several notches, it just wasn’t enough anymore. The new Inde now gets a larger, swan-neck rear wing similar to that on LMP cars, and for one, it certainly looks the part. The diffuser has also grown in size and is now more talented in the matters of downforce. The result of all of this is simply astonishing.

Tunnel-mounted racing-grade air filter a new addition.

You know a car is fast when even maintaining visual contact with it is difficult, despite having a grand, ringside view of things. As Narain pelts it from corner to corner, seemingly glued to the racing line, the Inde makes for an overwhelming spectacle. Over a hot lap, it forges a track-day car-sized tunnel through the damp air, and it’s so quick through even the tightest of bends, its own exhaust note can’t seem to keep pace with the bodywork. In its neutral setting, the Inde does put up a bit of a fight and the steering does kickback violently, something Narain feels should be dialled down for the average enthusiast. “It’s a phenomenal car to experience some real G-forces in,” he says, beaming, “but taking it to the limit requires experience”. Since this is coming from someone who has raced 700hp F1 cars, it’s a bit of advice one mustn’t take lightly.

It’s no surprise the Inde 2.0 is right on top of our leader board (replacing, well, the older Inde!), beating the earlier car by a whisker, despite the weather not being in its favour. It clocked a staggering 1min 42.4sec lap around the MMRT and this, on used tyres and over an inconveniently wet surface. Both, Anand and Narain echo the car’s potential to clock a flying lap of under 1min 38sec in perfect conditions, and it’s an estimate that’s easy to believe. The Ford-engined Inde is an impressive 7.7kph faster down the straight, clocking a top speed of 187.8kph (as opposed to the older car’s 180.2kph), and with more conducive track conditions, especially in the corners, it’s going to be undeniably faster. And just for reference, the fastest lap time posted by a production supercar on our track-day outings is 1min 48sec by the Mercedes AMG GTR. This, coming from a 585hp supercar which clocked a top speed of 205.5kph down the main straight, should tell you exactly how razor-sharp the Inde is in the corners.

Redesigned diffuser makes for increased downforce – a big necessity!

With a blistering lap time set, Narain eases off the Inde’s throttle and prepares to pit. The sudden drop in acoustic savagery is hard to acclimatise to, but nothing prepares me for the deafening silence that erupts as Narain kills the engine. The Inde may be no more than a toy in its function but what makes it so fascinating – even just to watch – is that it’s the result of, above all else, a quest for speed. That you can buy something as focused and evocative just to keep yourself entertained on weekends is incredulous, but if you can’t, the least you must do is get a ringside view of it. Or, if you like, there’s always going to be that spare seat next to Narain.

What is the pinnacle of motorsport? It’s a thorny and passionate subject motorsport fans burst blood vessels debating over. For me, the simple fact that Formula 1 cars hold every lap record on any circuit they have raced on settles the argument once and for all. Sure, WRC is more spectacular, there’s more wheel-to-wheel racing in IndyCar racing and nothing comes close to the split-second photo finishes in Moto GP. An F1 race may seem boring in comparison, but for ultimate speed, the ability to shrink time on a given track, there’s nothing on the planet that beats an F1 car. And speed is what motorsport is all about, isn’t it? It’s the reason why F1 attracts, by far, the best drivers in the world and the cleverest engineers to build their cars. At this topmost echelon of the sport, everything happens on a stratospheric scale. It starts with eye-watering budgets that pay for top talent all around, which includes the development of racing cars built with NASA levels of technology. So it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Formula 1 is the closest you’ll get to space without leaving Earth.

To first comprehend what that really means and then tell you what it’s really like to drive a genuine, full-blown Formula 1 car, I’m at the Paul Ricard circuit in the south of France waiting to be strapped into one. It was here that only two months earlier, Lewis Hamilton won the 2018 French Grand Prix and today, with the eerily empty grandstands in front of me (thank God!), I’m being given a chance to play F1 driver for an afternoon.

20-minute sessions in a Formula 4 car proved handy in acclimatising to a single-seater.

It was with a sense of déjà vu that I wiggled my distinctly non-F1 frame into the tight confines of the carbon-fibre tub and, with knees pinned together, stretched my legs into the narrow nose to probe the pedals. This was an environment I am very fortunate to have experienced twice before.

The first time was in 2001 when I drove an old but still very potent Larrousse LH94, and then later in 2008, at Magny-Cours, the experience went to another level with the more pedigreed Benetton B198 and Williams FW21 which raced in the 1998 and 1999 F1 Championship, respectively. Indeed, 10 years is a long gap but the memory of piloting a Formula 1 car is so vivid that it seems like yesterday. Also, with each stint comes a better state of preparedness. The first time around, I had absolutely no idea what to expect from a 700hp projectile that weighed less than a Nano. And today, I’ve fast-forwarded nearly 20 years to something pretty contemporary.

The 180hp, 400kg F4 machine has all the sensations of a racing car.

It’s the Lotus-Renault E20 that Kimi Räikkönen and Romain Grosjean raced in the 2012 Formula 1 season, notching up 303 points along the way, including a win at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. It’s nice to know the car I’m driving was actually capable of winning races, but it’s not nice to know that if I actually raced in this car, I would probably have been lapped within the first four laps! This Renault-powered 750hp, 2.4-litre V8 is also the last of an era of high-revving naturally aspirated engines now lost to the current breed of dull-sounding turbo-hybrids.

PREP TALK

What’s not lost is the shattering performance. This is why the Renault crew wasn’t going to let me loose with their fingers crossed just yet – not in something that’s capable of blasting to 100kph in 2.5sec and hitting a top speed of 260kph on one of the two straights at Paul Ricard. A better part of the day went in theory lessons, sitting passenger in a minivan to learn the track, and building up confidence in a Formula 4 car before experiencing the Full Monty.

Fairly modern F4 cockpit can still leave you with indelible bruises thanks to the incredible g-forces.

But first things first, I go through the ritual of donning the race gear that’s essential when you drive any single-seater. I pick XL-sized overalls but choose boots which are one size small. It’s a good way to shrink your feet so you can easily slip them into the tiny pedal box. It’s a hot July day and the three layers of fire-retardant overalls are slowly beginning to feel like a pizza oven. Staying properly hydrated is the key and I’ve lost track of how many bottles of mineral water I gulped down throughout the day.

Paul Ricard is a pretty fast circuit but with huge run-off areas, which makes it pretty safe for novice drivers. It’s also the base of the Winfield Racing School which runs the F1 Driving Experience programme for Renault Sport. To keep a better grip on the tightly packed schedule, Winfield used the shorter 3.8km loop of the main 5.8km Grand Prix circuit. It’s not a difficult circuit to learn and a few laps in the minivan alongside one of the instructors and a drivers’ briefing gave me a fair idea of the ideal lines and braking points.

Racing line at Paul Ricard chalked out, with the ideal acceleration and braking markers for reference.

STEPPING UP

The morning session was dedicated to driving the Formula 4 single-seater in 20-minute sessions, interspersed with various interesting activities to test one’s reflexes and hand-eye coordination. Before we jumped into the F4 car we did a few mild exercises to loosen up and were then let loose on the track in groups of three.

The first session was behind a pace car which went gradually faster, and this, for me, was the perfect way to acclimatise to a single-seater after a week of only driving a car that’s nothing like this one – our long-term Tata Hexa. The first few laps were spent memorising the circuit, which looks quite different when you’re sitting just a few inches above it.

Track surveillance and weather analysis crucial for safety.

The Formula 4 racer had only a 180hp engine but, weighing a scant 400kg, it felt really quick. It had all the sensations of a racing car – terrific grip, brilliant brakes, super-responsive steering and supercar-busting acceleration. The next two sessions were without a pace car and, by now, I could push as hard as I dared. It’s the sheer grip and the braking that is the most astonishing part about a single-seater, and even in this lesser Formula car, the g-forces were so intense that it was hard to hold my neck up through the corners. Pressed against the sides of the cockpit, my arms were so badly bruised that the welts (which I proudly flaunted) took a week to fade.

By the time we got to our third session, my confidence had built up, maybe a bit too much. I put the power down a tad early exiting the second chicane (a tricky, off-camber left-hander) and the F4 snapped into a 180-degree spin. Then came the humiliation when the telemetry from my three sessions was analysed. Compared to the traces of a pro driver, I was embarrassingly off the pace, especially in the faster corners and under hard braking. Well, at least I was better prepared for the different world that was waiting out there.

There’s no escaping classroom sessions, and for good reason.

On an average, it takes an F4 driver another 4-5 years of racing to make it (if at all) into F1. I’m doing the journey in 4-5 hours! Did someone mutter something about a steep learning curve? Well, I feel it’s more of a cliff that I’m about to leap off.

After the F4, the F1 car looks huge, but the cockpit certainly isn’t. You need the agility of an Olympic athlete to even get in and out. Messrs Lewis Hamilton and Sebastien Vettel make it look easy when they leap out of their cars, but believe me, with a 36-inch waist, it really isn’t. It’s hot and claustrophobic in the tight cockpit, which feels like it’s been shrink-wrapped around me. You sit really low, in an almost sleeping position, with your legs raised and knees pressed against the bulkhead. There’s just about enough room for your feet to operate the brake and accelerator; there’s no place for a clutch, and it is now a lever that’s located on the steering wheel. You can only left-foot brake ◊ ∆ and when you do, you need all your weight and then some. I am told I have to stomp the pedal with a pressure of over a 100kg to get the carbon brakes to work effectively.

There’s no escaping basic fitness measures either, understandably.

The steering wheel is uncomfortably close to me so my arms are seriously bent; this makes it hard to turn the steering more than half a lock. I am told that’s all I’ll need on this fast and open circuit which has no really tight bends. I am also instructed not to touch any of the myriad buttons the steering wheel is festooned with, except Neutral which I am asked to press when I come back to the pit lane. To make it even more uncomfortable, the pit crew gives my harness straps one last tug, which takes the wind out
of me.

FAST TENSE

The external starter is shoved into the Renault V8 from behind and it bursts into life. Even at a 6,000rpm idle, the sound of the V8 just inches behind my ears is exhilarating and I can feel my heart beating against the six-point harness. After getting the all-clear signal from the pit crew, I pull the right paddle to engage first gear and slowly release the hand-operated clutch on the steering wheel. This is it. I am driving a Formula 1 car!

I go around the first few corners gingerly, feeling my way around the track in this rocket on wheels, and it’s only when I reach the back straight that I get the confidence to nail the throttle pedal. The acceleration is so violent it feels like I’ve been strapped onto a Brahmos missile, and it’s hard for my brain to process how fast I’m going.

The brutal way this Renault-powered car rockets forward makes it difficult for me to hold my head straight. My helmet is buffeted by the wind, which blurs my vision and the way the tarmac streaks past under me, it looks like it’s been sped up to 4X.

The high-pitched shriek of the engine at 17,000rpm is spine-tingling and there’s no let up in speed in any gear. Third, fourth, fifth, sixth, each gearshift produces a neck-snapping lurch and within a flash, I’m touching 260kph. The car could have gone faster still, beyond 300kph, but Renault has removed the 7th gear to limit speed as a precaution. The Renault motor is ultra-responsive and flies to its dizzy redline so fast that you’re constantly pulling the right paddle on full throttle. My eyes are locked onto the road because everything is happening so fast that it’s hard to even see the shift lights at the top of the steering wheel. I prefer the audible beep you hear through your earplugs (which also double as tiny speakers), to tell you precisely when to shift up.

Straight-line acceleration, ferocious as it is, was the only bit about the F1 car I could exploit and enjoy. Impossible to fathom is the cornering and braking abilities of an F1 car, of which I just about scratched the surface. The power steering is surprisingly light for such a powerful car but make no mistake, it’s sabre-sharp and accurate. It responds best to small and precise inputs and will reward the committed driver. In my case, the truth is that I simply wasn’t going fast enough to get the aero and tyres working. To drive an F1 car properly, you need to have implicit trust in the car because the only way to generate serious downforce is to go even faster. It’s hugely counter-intuitive and my instincts for self-preservation kept getting me to lift my right leg when actually I should have kept it pinned down. Forget the aero, I didn’t even come close to the limits of the hard compound tyres, which I don’t think I got up to operating temperature. But even in my tooling around Paul Ricard, which a Grand Prix driver would at best call a Sunday Drive, the lateral forces were quite immense and it felt like an elephant sitting on the side of my helmet. And then you have the brakes in a Formula 1 car, which don’t work optimally until they get very hot. ‘Optimally’ is a very relative term here, because though the brakes had no feel – with a pedal that felt like you were pressing a concrete brick – they are mind-bogglingly effective. Like most newbies, I end up braking far too early because when your brain is telling you to lift off, you can stay on the throttle for a couple of more seconds. Later, looking at the telemetry, my brake pedal pressure was only 60 percent of what it should have been.

It was all over and back to the pits sooner than I could shout ‘Formula 1’, but those handful of laps felt like the drive lasted a lifetime. The only problem is, every car I drive from now on will seem miserably slow!

The Fastest Taxi Ride

To show me how it’s really done, Stephane Richelmi an LMP2 race driver took me for a taxi ride in a specially adapted two-seater Renault F1 car. The experience was both terrifying and deeply humiliating. Firstly, I’m stuffed into a hole, which is the passenger seat, legs either side of Richelmi, with nothing to really hold on to. There’s no steering wheel obviously, but there’s not even a bar or a strap form to grip firmly tight, Sitting directly behind the driver, I can barely see ahead of me, which is probably a good thing.

From the moment he accelerated out of the pit lane, I wondered if this guy is from a different planet. Approaching the first corner, a tight-hander, I was hard on the brakes, which in my case was Richelmi’s left thigh, while he continued accelerating hard for an extra two seconds. And when he did brake, I thought my eyeballs would hit my visor. My brain just could not process how late you can brake in an F1 car and how devastatingly effective it is at shedding speed.

Through the corners, you can really feel the g-forces and I mean really. When I was driving the Lotus-Renault, I could just about hold my head straight through the corners, but with Richelmi, it was almost impossible. My helmet was bobbing all over the place, buffeted by the wind and intense accelerative forces.

The most white-knuckled bit of the ride was the way Richelmi took Signes, the ultra-fast, right-hand sweeper at the end of the straight, completely flat. There was not even a hint of a lift off, no hesitation, the car wasn’t even on the edge. And to think I hit the brakes each time before Signes! Yes, these guys are from another planet.

The world’s best drivers race against the clock in mud, slush, sand and snow, in cars that are loosely based on mass-production hatchbacks you and I can buy.

Ceremonial start at a picturesque resort in Marmaris.

Even at a World Rally Championship (WRC) event, you can enjoy a level of accessibility you wouldn’t expect at the topmost level of the sport. It’s not just about getting to see cars jumping and sliding at insane speeds without any barriers in front of you, but also the fact that a lot of the cars move from stage to stage on normal roads (at normal speeds) with regular traffic.

It’s not uncommon to spot a WRC rally winner or world champion parked by the side of the road changing a tyre or struggling to fix a damaged part with just his co-driver to help (the rules don’t allow competitors to take outside help except in designated service areas). Can you ever imagine Formula 1 drivers, sealed off from everything outside the paddock, ever doing that at a Grand Prix?

The service park is the hub of every rally.

The hub of every WRC rally is the service park, which is the equivalent of the paddock as well as the pits. There’s a relaxed, carnival-like atmosphere here unlike the frosty and unfriendly paddocks at an F1 Grand Prix. It’s also here that fans can get close to the cars and watch them getting repaired.

The Hyundai Motorsport team has the biggest set-up in the service park here in Marmaris, the base for Rally Turkey. It’s a massive two-storey structure big enough to provide five-star hospitality for their guests. You can hang out here and get a good view, from the first floor, of the three WRC Hyundai i20 coupés getting serviced by a flurry of mechanics, whilst sipping a beer.

Hayden Paddon and Seb Marshall stayed out of trouble to finish 3rd overall.

Apart from the basic chassis and body, there’s not much in common between the WRC i20 and a showroom car. Powered by a 1.6-litre, four-cylinder turbo-petrol engine producing 380hp, the
WRC cars are the quickest they’ve been in a long time. Also, with more aerodynamic freedom
allowed, WRC cars generate more downforce than before and look the part, too. Large wings, big diffusers, splitters and spoilers are what add the wow factor to an otherwise mundane-looking hatch.

But despite the massive, well-oiled operation of a big-budget team like Hyundai, things can go awfully wrong. Hyundai came to Rally Turkey as favourites, with championship leader Thierry Neuville hoping to extend his lead at the top of the table. Neuville led on the first day but then bust his suspension on day two, which knocked him out of contention. In fact, the action-packed Rally Turkey saw a high rate of attrition due to the gruelling stages, which were by far the roughest on a WRC event in recent years. The gravel roads, strewn with rocks and stones, took their toll with many of the top drivers dropping out, including Andreas Mikkelsen and five-time world champion Sébastien Ogier.

Winner Ott Tänak completes a hat-trick of wins.

At the end of the third day it was Ott Tänak, rallying’s new sensation, in his Toyota Gazoo Racing Yaris, who cleverly stayed out of trouble to take victory. The Estonian driver also completed a hat-trick of WRC wins and has leapfrogged over Ogier to move into a close second place behind Neuville in the championship standings.

In the unpredictable and uncertain world of rallying, it’s not always the fastest but the smartest driver that wins.

Q&A MICHEL NANDAN, TEAM PRINCIPAL, HYUNDAI MOTORSPORT

On being hopeful of a championship win despite challenges and fierce competition.

How tough were the stages?

The stages are really rough and I think this generation of drivers has never driven in these types of rough conditions. The stages here are very difficult, much worse than stages from difficult rallies like Argentina, Portugal or Sardinia. But we know that on these types of roads, when it is quite rough, the car can be quite competitive.

While the WRC i20 is competitive on gravel, it’s not, on tarmac. What work needs to be done?

We have a car that has a longer wheelbase so for sure the car is not very quick to react or turn into corners quickly. But this is the basic design of the car, which we can’t change. In fact, we are really trying to reduce the lack of responsiveness. To do that, we are working on the differential and the suspension. We have new evolutions of the front suspension, which we will test; we are confident it will give us a faster turn-in. Also, we have some new differentials to test, for reducing the understeer. The advantage we have is that due to the long wheelbase, our car is more stable on some stages and also has good grip.

How confident are you about winning the championship?

Of course, our target is always to win the championship and we are in a very good position this year. It is quite tight with Toyota and Ford but we are confident about some of the remaining rallies. In Wales last year, we performed quite well; and also in the previous year. So we know we have a very good chance there. Spain is on tarmac and that’s where we need to improve. So we are working on that. The last rally in Australia is always quite favourable for us. The competition is really strong and it looks like the championship will be decided in Australia.

]]>Hormazd Sorabjee Hormazd Sorabjee World Rally Championship: Rally Turkey Experience2461402461401Sat, 27 Oct 2018 07:00:00 +1000410190Hormazd Sorabjee Autocar India staff photograherMon, 1 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +1000The Marmaris Rally Turkey was one of the roughest WRC events in recent history and underscored the unpredictability and uncertainty in rallying, which makes this discipline of motorsport so special. We share the experience.The Marmaris Rally Turkey was one of the roughest WRC events in recent history and underscored the unpredictability and uncertainty in rallying, which makes this discipline of motorsport so special. We share the experience.Sat, 27 Oct 2018 07:00:00 +1000https://www.autocarindia.com/auto-features/world-rally-championship-rally-turkey-experience-410190#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Autocar+India+Features+feed410190Sponsored Feature: Maruti Suzuki Dakshin Dare 2018

On the face of it, the Maruti Suzuki Dakshin Dare may seem like a fairly easy rally, as compared to other cross-country rallies. After all, it is driving through the Western Ghats, taking in the scenic vistas of the region, right?

Wrong. Don’t let the beauty of the Maruti Suzuki Dakshin Dare trick you into thinking this is a cakewalk. It’s easy to lose focus when one’s driving through exceedingly gorgeous locations, but the Dakshin Dare demands every participant’s attention, at all times. This is a true test of endurance for man and machine alike. This year, the challenge was more daunting than ever before.

The 2018 Maruti Suzuki Dakshin Dare was flagged off from Orion Mall, Bengaluru.

For the grand 10th edition of the Maruti Suzuki Dakshin Dare, the organisers drew-up a new route (different from the one seen in years past) spanning an excess of 2,000km and covering three states – Karnataka, Maharashtra and Goa – a distance to be covered in just five days. This was a route constructed to extract the maximum out of competitors and their cars and push them to their extremes. Over 140 participants, comprising a total of 80 teams, were a part of the 10th edition of the Dakshin Dare, fighting it out in three different categories – Ultimate Cars, Ultimate Bikes and Endurance Cars (TSD). Interestingly, there was a large contingent of women drivers and navigators participating in the Endurance Cars class.

Maruti Suzuki is a name motorsport enthusiasts are all too familiar with. It has been at the forefront of the motorsport scene in the country for close to two decades now. Rally enthusiasts have seen the Gypsy and the Grand Vitara win trophies by the bucketload, and the journey now continues as Maruti Suzuki looks to usher in a new era with its next generation of rally cars.

Team Maruti Suzuki Motorsport’s Suresh Rana (L) started off as one of the favourites.

Armed with vital learnings from its Desert Storm outing earlier this year, Team Maruti Suzuki Motorsport was back once again, and just like in Desert Storm, fielded a total of four teams. This time, the twist was with the cars they entered: in addition to the venerable Grand Vitara (driven by veteran rallyist and multiple-time Dakshin Dare winner Suresh Rana), there were the rally-ready S-cross and Vitara Brezza; and instead of the iconic Gypsy, Maruti Suzuki Motorsport brought in a close-to-stock 2WD Vitara Brezza as well. What’s notable about the 2WD Vitara Brezza is that apart from a few modifications necessitated by rally regulations (a roll cage, new suspension, etc), this car was mostly identical to its road-going sibling, which has proved to be a roaring hit with the Indian masses. The point was to put the new-generation cars through a true test of their abilities, and demonstrate that they’re more than capable of taking over from the iconic but ageing rally cars.

Competitors’ machines were subjected to intense scrutiny.

After the scrutiny on Day 1, the 10th edition of the Maruti Suzuki Dakshin Dare was flagged off from Orion Mall, in the heart of Bengaluru. Competition in the Ultimate Cars class promised to be truly fierce, with ace Indian rallyist Gaurav Gill returning to the competition after a gap of more than five years, but Team Maruti Suzuki Motorsport was confident of its chances. Each of its teams had individuals with previous Dakshin Dare successes to their name, and they were more than game with the difficulty level being cranked up.

The first leg kicked off near Hosadurga, in Karnataka. Getting things underway was a 44km-long dirt stage that the cars had to complete thrice, and they had to be extra careful as not only was it a fast section, but it was also very narrow, and a slight misstep could send them in a downward spiral. While Team Maruti Suzuki Motorsport’s men fought hard, niggling issues meant they couldn’t make much of an impact on the opening day. But rallying is never about a single day’s performance, and the teams knew that well. It was important to finish the day in a respectable position and try and mount a comeback on the following days – and that’s exactly what Team Maruti Suzuki Motorsport did.

Following the opening stages in Hosadurga was a spectacular, fast and flowing 24km section in Aimangala, and that’s where Maruti Suzuki Motorsport’s Suresh Rana, Samrat Yadav (driving the S-cross) and Sandeep Sharma (driving the 2WD Vitara Brezza) came into their own, putting in strong performances to gain vital positions and make their way up the leaderboard. In Leg 2, Rana in particular staged a remarkable comeback, finishing in 6th place overall – five places up from his Day 1 ranking of 11th overall; while Sharma surprised many by slotting his 2WD Vitara Brezza in a commendable 4th place.

Rock and gravel stages were tricky, as teams had to go fast yet protect their cars.

After doing the first two days’ stages once again in Leg 3, the action moved to the state of Maharashtra for Leg 4. This was also the first day that saw the arrival of rain, which – conspicuous by its absence till that point – no doubt, added an element of drama to the proceedings. Slipping and sliding across the narrow, gravel- and dirt-strewn stage, teams put on a show and notched-up searing stage times. Thanks to his consistent performances, Yadav slowly made his way into 3rd place overall, and with one more leg remaining, things looked good for Maruti Suzuki Motorsport.

Cut to Leg 5: The setting for the final stage of the rally was nothing like the opening stages – close to the village of Bhor, the weather in the final stages was cold. There was plenty of rain, and the fog hanging around the Western Ghats meant the participants also had visibility issues to contend with. But it was beautiful, nonetheless – a 75km ribbon of tarmac snaking through the Ghats that presented competitors with a fitting final challenge. And Maruti Suzuki Motorsport’s men rose to the occasion, completing the stage in good time to strengthen their hold on their respective positions.

This is a rally that demands all of the participants’ attention, all of the time.

Unfortunately, the second lap of the stage had to be cancelled because visibility had dropped by a big margin, and rallying in such conditions would be incredibly dangerous. But what the stage had witnessed in the first run was truly magnificent – competitors pushing themselves and their cars to the absolute limit, even in conditions that would best be described as treacherous. Never mind the risk involved with driving fast on a soaking wet ghat road, with a single mistake potentially proving fatal for the car, the teams went all out, and it made for spectacular viewing.

Eventually, it was Gill who proved to be untouchable throughout the competition and won the Ultimate Cars class at the 2018 Dakshin Dare, but Team Maruti Suzuki Motorsport had plenty to celebrate as well, with Yadav securing 1st place in the T1 4WD category and finishing in 3rd place overall. Even more impressive was the 2WD Vitara Brezza finishing 2nd in the 2WD category and 4th in overall standings, which speaks volumes of this ever-popular SUV’s durability and capability. Rana took 2nd place in the T1 4WD category, and finished 5th overall, showing that the old warhorse, the Grand Vitara, still has plenty of fight left in it.

In the Ultimate Bikes category, Vishwas S.D claimed the overall title, making the most of early leader Yuva Kumar’s misfortune in the last Special Stage. Yuva, who was leading all the way from the start, saw his bike break down with just 15km to go; and by the time the damage was repaired, he lost 15min. The setback dropped him to 3rd place overall, with Vinay Prasad slotting into 2nd.

The 10th edition of the Maruti Suzuki Dakshin Dare, then, delivered on every count, and then some. It provided plenty of action across some truly thrilling stages set in beautiful locations, but it also reminded one of the age-old piece of rallying advice: to finish first, you must first finish. The trick to finishing a rally is to preserve your vehicle, and employ the right tactics for every stage.

Going flat-out every single day would take its toll on the vehicle and the participants, and a serious breakdown could spell the end for any team. The idea is to persevere, adapt to every situation and play smartly. Taking a measured approach to every day and knowing when to put the hammer down can pay off handsomely – as was shown by Team Maruti Suzuki Motorsport’s men.

They didn’t let the hiccups in the opening stages bog them down. Instead, they chose to work steadily towards finding their way up the leaderboard, and by strategising and cleverly planning out their approach for each stage, they managed to leapfrog other competitors and finish strong.

Team Maruti Suzuki Motorsport’s men strike a victorious pose in Goa.

What’s also worth mentioning is that the performance of Maruti Suzuki’s next-gen rally cars was truly astonishing, with each car proving to be fast, tough and also incredibly reliable. There can be no doubt that starting next year, Team Maruti Suzuki Motorsport will truly be a force to be reckoned with.

The alarm is set for 3am but I’m wide awake well before it rings. It’s the effect of jet lag to a large extent, but also adrenalin building up in anticipation of my first encounter with the mountain. The mountain is Pikes Peak in Colorado, home to the longest, highest and most extreme hill climb on earth. The starting line alone is at an elevation of 9,390ft and the finish at the summit is 14,110ft above the ocean. It’s 20km (19.99km to be exact) long with 156 corners, most of which have no guard rail, no run-offs or gravel traps, but sharp drops where, if you slide off, a parachute is more likely to save you than a roll cage.

It’s the spectacular terrain and altitude that has made the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, as it is formally known, one the greatest motorsport events in the world. First held in 1916, it’s the second-oldest race in America after the Indy 500 and has seen some of the world’s best drivers blast up the mountain in insanely quick cars. The race cars too make Pikes Peak so very special because this is possibly the only international race in the world where cars don’t have to conform to any regulations. The Unlimited Class, as the name suggests, has no limits and competitors can bring just about anything on four wheels, as long as they meet the required safety standards.

The paddock has the feel of a club event. There are no motorhomes, no security, no strictly out-of-bounds areas. It’s one mad fest of all kinds of machinery – from fully prepped factory cars to privateers in 30-year-old bangers with fully blown engines. I couldn’t get over Tim Hardy’s 1987 E30 BMW 325i, which he had pumped up to develop 650hp! There are even big trucks, dune buggies, purpose-built single-seaters, and, of course, electric cars.

Massive turbochargers and humongous wings are the order of the day, because, at this altitude, the air we (and the engines) breathe is in short supply. You need forced induction to squeeze as much of it in the engine and lots of aero to compensate for the lower downforce experienced in the thin air. There’s a proliferation of spoilers, diffusers, splitters and all sorts of aero devices in the quest to increase downforce. Most of the Unlimited Class cars have rear wings the size of a garden bench. It all looks fabulously dramatic, and the sound and smell of the engines running rich, spewing out neat petrol is a heady experience. In true American style, Pikes Peak is a celebration of internal combustion. But, this year, Volkswagen is here to spoil the party with its purpose-built, full-electric I.D. R Pikes Peak racer.

RACE TO THE CLOUDS

The bus with all of us journos onboard leaves the Mining Exchange hotel at 3.30am sharp. We have to reach Devil’s Playground, the best viewing area on the mountain, some 14km from the start line at an altitude of 13,000ft, before 5.30am. That’s when the 20km course is closed for practice to start. There’s only one road up to the summit and everyone has to use it; spectators, officials, marshals, media and competitors alike.

The view from Devil’s Playground is simply outstanding and lives up to the Hill Climb’s other name – Race to the Clouds. The early morning sun has just popped above a thick blanket of clouds that extend all the way to the horizon; it’s a truly magical sight and the race hasn’t even started. It’s Friday and we are here for the final practice run that’s split class-wise, over three sections of the 20km road. The Unlimited cars are on the final run and a large parking area has been converted into a makeshift pit area for all the competitors. The still mountain air is broken by the sound of racing engines ricocheting off the rock face, and from my fantastic vantage point, I can hear the cars for a good minute or so before they fly into view.

Gigantic turbos needed to make engines breathe in thin air.

And then came something I was not prepared for. A high-pitched siren that sounded like an ambulance; it turned out to be the VW I.D. R Pikes Peak racer approaching the start line. Because electric cars are so quiet, the organisers insist they create some artificial noise to warn spectators and scare animals away. That’s why there’s a regulation that electric cars have to be at least 120dB loud, and hence the siren!

Romain Dumas, two-time LeMans winner and three-time winner of Pikes Peak, jumps into the I.D. R from the roof, which opens like a submarine’s hatch. Strapped in and ready to go, he’s flagged off by the course starter and rockets out of sight. The I.D. R is gone in a whoosh as if it wasn’t there.

No motorsport event is complete without Porsche.

A fast walk at this altitude isn’t advisable for someone as unfit as me but I had to rush to another spot to get a better view of the VW I.D. R whizzing past on its next practice run. Watching the I.D. R was a bit of an anti-climax because you always equate speed with noise and this electric racer sounds more like a low-flying aircraft than a high-strung racing car. It’s visibly faster than anything else but the only sound you really hear (apart from that annoying siren) is tyre roar, and the car’s diffuser and massive rear wing shredding the air.

Dumas’ qualifying time of 3min 16.083sec on a shortened section of the course gave a hint of VW’s goal to break not just the 8min 57.118sec electric car record, but also Sebastien Loeb’s outright record of 8min 13.878sec. Not only was Dumas’ time faster than Loeb’s for the same run, it was set on the lower section of the course, where the lower altitude doesn’t give an electric motor as
big an advantage. That advantage would only increase in the climb to the top, as the I.D. R’s performance would be unaffected, unlike an internal combustion engine car, which would lose 40 percent of its power at the summit.

Dumas broke the record just in time. Snow came an hour after his run.

Still, VW Motorsport bosses kept mum about their intentions and didn’t go beyond saying that it was the EV record they were after. Anyone who has raced at Pikes Peak knows that it’s best not to speak too soon. And that’s because the weather here is so unpredictable that you can experience bright sunshine, rain, slush and snow all in a morning. To set a perfect time you need perfect conditions, and, hence, the biggest threat is always the weather. As the locals say, in the end “the mountain decides” who will win and who won’t.

THE MOUNTAIN DECIDES

There’s no racing on Saturday as the teams and drivers are still recovering from the previous night’s fan fest in Colorado Springs. The entire circus is set-up in the heart of the town for fans and enthusiasts to see all the crazy machinery and meet the drivers before Sunday’s race.

The weather forecast on race day ominously showed a 20 percent chance of rain, and all that the VW team could do was pray. Thankfully, the morning went smoothly with the early morning mist making way for a bright blue sky. The I.D. R sat cocooned in a temperature- controlled plastic tent, all prepped and ready. “Batteries work optimally in a very small temperature range so you have to be constantly cooling and heating them,” said Francois-Xavier Demaison, Volkswagen Motorsport’s technical director.

The race started with the bikes, which always go before the cars, and if everything went according to plan, Dumas would start his run around 9.30am. But it doesn’t always go according to plan. A bike crash and a helicopter evacuation of a spectator who collapsed because of altitude sickness stopped the race by 45min. And as Dumas waited, he watched the clouds envelope Pikes Peak. “It was very stressful just waiting in the car. I didn’t want to come out as that would have made me even more stressful!” he said.

The stripped-out, modded Beetle powered by a 250hp, 2.0 diesel.

He was finally called to the start line just after 10am, and he shot off like a rocket when the flag dropped. Standing patiently around 500m after the start, I almost missed the I.D. R, which flashed past so quickly and was gone before I could hear its siren.

Dumas pushed hard in the first sector, which is the fastest section of the course where the tarmac is also at its grippiest. He took it easy in the second sector but enjoyed the way the car rocketed out of the hairpins. “The car had a bit too much understeer and I think we selected harder tyres than we should have,” said Romain. The conditions got a little slippery here with the moisture-laden clouds laying a thin film of dampness on the road. “There wasn’t much grip in the second sector and I didn’t want to take chances.” The third sector or the final lunge to the summit was again sunny, so he pushed harder and strung it all together to cross the finish line in a stupendous 7min 57.148sec, averaging 145kph! Not only had Dumas and the I.D. R eclipsed the electric car record by exactly a whole minute, but they outright vapourised Loeb’s record by over 16sec. And he could have gone faster! “I think I could have gone another 10sec faster but I didn’t want to take risks because at Pikes Peak you only have one shot. It’s not like Nordschleife or LeMans where there is always another lap to make up,” said a relieved Dumas.

Dumas’ time of 7min 57.148sec makes him the fastest man ever on the mountain.

Romain Dumas and the Volkswagen I.D. R have made history. This is the first time the 8min barrier has been breached, and this is the first time an electric car has set the outright fastest time on the mountain. “For a race like this, with a distance of 20km, the perfect package is an electric car,” said Dumas. For Volkswagen, it was a vindication of its belief that the I.D. R could do it despite being developed in a record seven months.

It’s also the mountain that Dumas must thank. It waited for him to cross the finish line before dumping hail and snow on the summit. So it’s true what they say. At Pikes Peak, it’s the mountain that decides.

Q&A TOP OF THE WORLD - ROMAIN DUMAS TELLS US ABOUT HIS RECORD RUN

With your win, do you think the electric revolution in motorsport has started?
Last year when I finished the race I said the future at Pikes Peak will be electric. That’s for sure. But I’m not sure if this is the start of a revolution, especially when I see a Formula E race!

How much of a margin do you give yourself driving up the mountain compared to LeMans?
In LeMans we are driving at 99.9 percent but here I am driving at 90 percent. The problem at Pikes Peak is that we don’t have any time for testing, we test just three times before the race so I have to keep some margin.

Did you set up the car to have a bit more understeer and be less edgy on this treacherous course?
Yes the car is set up with a bit of understeer because it is always easier to manage an understeering car than one that oversteers, especially when you have a lot of trees and rocks on the side.

What else did you do with the set-up?
We tried to get the maximum downforce and played with the dampers, rolls bars and camber a little bit. But I have to say the balance of the car was really good.

What did you for seven hours at the summit?
Just sat in a small restaurant and had a cheeseburger.

PEAK CHARGE THE RECORD-SMASHING VW I.D. R

Romain Dumas’ outright record and first-ever sub-8min time in the 102-year history of Pikes Peak is thanks to the astonishing technology that powered the VW I.D R. Twin electric motors, one for each axle, develop a combined 680hp and 650Nm of torque. The I.D. R weighs less than 1,100kg and can accelerate from 0-100kph in a ridiculous 2.2sec; faster than a Formula 1 car!

Competing in the Unlimited Class gave VW engineers a lot of freedom to build a bespoke car to conquer the mountain. A lightweight structure was key, and according to Willy Rampf, technical advisor to the Pikes Peak project, computer simulation played a vital role in designing parts that were not oversized or overweight.

Racing in thin air where downforce on an average is 35 percent less than on a racetrack at sea level meant a lot of focus was put on achieving the maximum downforce for optimal cornering speeds. This is why the
I.D R has such a massive rear wing; it “compensates for some of the lost downforce,” said Rampf.

The core of any EV, even a race-bred one, is the battery pack, and the I.D. R’s lithium-ion battery has been designed to provide the best power density, and sacrifice range for the highest-possible power output.

Still, the VW Motorsports team wished they had more time to develop the I.D R because getting the car to the start line within the impossibly tight seven-month window meant outsourcing components, which wasn’t optimal. Rampf feels he needed more time “to get a better understanding of the batteries and battery management system which would have given us more pace.” It went down to the wire with engineers in a race against time to get the car race-ready. “Five days before the event the car wasn’t running properly.” But, in the end, the VW Motorsport team threw it all together to set a record in record time.

]]>Hormazd Sorabjee Hormazd Sorabjee Altitude Quickness: The Pikes Peak experience2461402461401Hormazd Sorabjee Altitude Quickness: The Pikes Peak experience2461402461401Hormazd Sorabjee Altitude Quickness: The Pikes Peak experienceRace cars sprout massive wings to compensate for loss of downforce at high altitudes.2461402461401Hormazd Sorabjee Altitude Quickness: The Pikes Peak experienceYou can race just about anything here.2461402461401Sat, 11 Aug 2018 06:00:00 +1000409275Hormazd Sorabjee Autocar India staff photograherMon, 1 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +1000Romain Dumas in the VW I.D. R Pikes Peak conquered the mountain with a record-breaking drive. We were there to see history being made.Romain Dumas in the VW I.D. R Pikes Peak conquered the mountain with a record-breaking drive. We were there to see history being made.Sat, 11 Aug 2018 06:00:00 +1000https://www.autocarindia.com/auto-features/altitude-quickness-the-pikes-peak-experience-409275#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Autocar+India+Features+feed409275